DISASTER
& SOCIAL CRISIS RESEARCH NETWORK - NEWSLETTER 2
The
Yugoslav Disaster Diary: A Connection Between 'Social' and 'Natural' Disasters?
A more
than four week-long drought and a tropical heat above 30 degrees Celsius,
accompanied by fires and followed by hailstorms, struck Yugoslavia and the
surrounding Balkan countries during this spring and summer. They have created
degrading living conditions for humans, flora and fauna. Agricultural yields
are decimated, especially fodder, seasonal vegetables and fruit.
It still
can not be ascertained precisely to what extent the fuel exhaust from several
hundred to over one-thousand NATO military aircraft contributed to the
aggravation of the main cause of climatic changes and of these natural
disasters - the long-term tropospheric warming and stratospheric ozone depletion.
The NATO forces made 36.000 sorties during 78 nights and days of illegal
bombing of Yugoslavia, last spring and early summer. Also, they still maintain
intensified flying activity over the Balkan region, contributing further to air
pollution and formation of nitric acid rain clouds endangering entire Europe.
It is
certain, however, that NATO countries political and military
leaderships' choice of mainly civilian targets for destruction by more than
23.000 tons of explosives contained in cluster bombs, Tomahawk Cruise missiles
and A-10 plane bullets "enriched" with depleted uranium, made
more difficult and sometimes impossible the implementation of drought,
fire and hailstorm disaster prevention and relief measures.
Thus the
bombing of industrial plants which were producing plastic water pipes and
agricultural machines and appliances, besides increasing the rate of the
already high unemployment, also dwindled capa-cities for reparation and
development of a proper irrigation network, deep plowing of soil,
airplane extinguishing of fire and rocket protection from hail.
The
destruction or damaging of the major chemical, petrochemical, fertilizer,
pharma-ceutical plants and infrastructure, thwarted the proper filtering and
chemical main-tenance of water, reduced implementation of adequate
agrotechnical measures like artificial manuring to just 10% of the arable lend,
and decreased storage and production capacities of medicines.
The
bombing of 144 major petrochemical and industrial installations and factories
in a largely agricultural region, caused as well long-lasting and
trans-boundary pollution of the entire ecosystem with very toxic and
potentially carcinogenic and mutagenic substances (e.g. ethylene dichloride,
hydrochloride, vinyl chloride monomer, sulphur dioxide, phosgene, nitrogen
hydroxide, ammonia, pyraline, lead, liquid mercury). These substances made
their way into the Danube and its tributaries, Lepenica and Velika Morava
rivers, that feed reservoirs used for drinking water and irrigation by 85 million
people in the entire Basin before emptying into the Black Sea.
It is
also certain that the USA and EU administrations' policy of collective
punishment of the Yugoslav peoples, irrespective of nationality, through the
imposition of an economic blockage and sanctions, for
almost a decade (minimally corrected by few self-interested exceptions), are
still hampering the implementation of adequate natural disaster relief
measures. The USA and EU governments will remain legally accountable for further
increases of the death rate due to deteriorated nutrition, hygiene and
health care under conditions of economic deprivation that were aggravated by
the bombing and under a regime of sanctions which
restricted the possibilities for the importing of ingredients
necessary for the production of foodstuffs, filters and
medicaments. All drugs are scarce, but especially citostatics, since the
incidence of cancer is already doubled according to December 1999 "Report
of Current Cancer Epidemiology in Serbia based on Available Data" by
Cancer Foundation Yugoslavia (e-mail: kbcbkosa@ptt.yu
)
Vera
Vratusa
Department of Sociology, University of Belgrade
vvratusa@dekart.f.bg.ac.yu